Trapped
by Obsidian5
Summary: A stream of consciousness vignette from Jack's POV post FO II.


Title: Trapped

Author: Obsidian

Disclaimer: The usual. . . I own nothing. Wish that I did. Jealous of those who do. Don't intend any infringement of any kind. Couldn't infringe even if I wanted to because no one in their right mind would give me money for this anyway.

Spoilers: Up through Fallout. 

Notes: Many, many thanks to Red Creeper for the beta read and all the time, insight and moral support given. Words cannot convey my appreciation. And thanks to everyone at Maple Street who inspired me with their brilliance to try my hand at the first piece of creative writing that I have attempted since I wrote a silly poem in the ninth grade. Now that I have tried this creative writing thing, I find that I enjoyed it immensely and would like to do it again. So I would appreciate any constructive criticism that anyone can provide to improve my writing. Thanks!

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"Trapped" . . . As he sank wearily into his chair, that word, once again, came unbidden and unwanted to the forefront of his mind. . ."trapped." For a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of rolling it around in his thoughts, of letting it rise to his lips, of contemplating its meaning. But then, as he had done so many times before, he pushed it back to the dark place in his soul where it always came from. But this time, it was no use. Today, of all days, that damn word, which seemed to have a mind of its own, refused to stay buried.

He shook his head and snorted derisively to himself. This was getting ridiculous. He had to stop these thoughts that came to him constantly in the most unexpected and untimely places - in his office, eating dinner, interviewing a witness, in line for his morning coffee and . . . every single time that he saw her face. 

Ever since that day that he walked into that bookstore to trade his life for hers, these thoughts came to him - Barry's much too observant words and the knowledge that continued to haunt him ever since that day. That he was trapped. And that he had done this. That there was no one else to blame. That he was the one who was responsible for all of the pain and all of the resentments and all of the damage that had haunted the lives of those who mattered the most to him. All because he was afraid. 

God, the irony. He was an FBI agent for Christ's sake. A man accustomed to action. A man who prided himself on always being in control. So how did he end up here? In this place. Alone. Tangled in a web of actions, words and feelings that left him immobile and afraid, unable to move forward or backward, unable to make a decision, unable to set anyone free. 

Every time that he saw the anger in Maria's eyes, every time he felt Samantha's watchful stare, he knew the truth. That he had to do something. Anything. He had to let someone go. He had to walk away from one . . .or the other. But he didn't do that... Couldn't do that...Wouldn't do that. And so he was caught in between. Between a woman that he should love but couldn't and a woman that he wasn't supposed to love but did. 

Dammit . . . he knew that life wasn't supposed to be simple, but who the hell decided that it should be this complicated. Of course, he wasn't supposed to be this selfish either. But he was . . . protecting himself through his inaction at the expense of two of the most important people in his life - his wife and his lover. 

Sighing to himself, he mentally corrected . . ."Ex-lover." And with that slip, he saw even more evidence within him that Barry was right. He i was /i a petty man. He pretended to let Sam go because that was what he was "supposed" to do. The thing that polite society tells you is right and good and true. But it was a lie. Every time that he told her it was over. Every time that he tried to walk away. 

In his heart and in the quiet places in his mind where he stored the memories of her, of  
what they had been to one another, he never really let her go. And she knew that. He saw it in her eyes when he walked into that bookstore, heard it in her cries after he called her "sweetheart" in a moment when he cared nothing about what a moral man would do, and felt it in her touch on his face when he promised her that he would be back - the same promise that he made to her countless times before when he left her bed. God help him. She knew. 

And he wondered what else she knew. Did she know that sometimes he actually believed the lie that he had taken so much care to craft? Did she know that in those moments he thought, perhaps, it wasn't really a lie at all. That maybe he really did want to let her go so that he could go back to the life that he had once known. A simple life, an average life, a normal life. Before her, he never thought that there was anything wrong with that. 

What could possibly be wrong about a life in which your own children don't hate you? A life in which it is acceptable to run your hands over the hair and the face of the woman that you love. Where you don't have to worry about moaning her name in your dreams. Where you don't have to hide everything that you are and everything that you want behind a mask of civility and friendship and professionalism. 

But wanting this simplicity in those moments changed nothing. Ultimately, he could never walk away from her in his mind the way that he had walked away from her bed. It wasn't that simple. Nothing ever is. 

And like so many before him, he had fallen into the trap of thinking that it was the act that he committed that was the betrayal of his marriage. That it was the adultery that was the sin. That if he could just end that, end their physical relationship, that that would be enough. Then he could go back to his wife and live a life bound perhaps not by joy but at least by a shared love of two beautiful and innocent little girls. 

But he was wrong. The sex was never what really mattered. No matter how much it pleased him to make love to Samantha, to touch her skin, to feel her around him, to hear his name on her lips, that was never what made her . . . unforgettable. And in hindsight, he can't believe that he ever thought that it was.

Because, ultimately, no matter how many times he told himself that making love to her was his greatest sin, his greatest betrayal, and his greatest lie, he was wrong. It would never change the fact that the real sin was always that she - a woman who was not his wife and who was not his to have - would always be the one who reminded him of hope and light and salvation And it would never stop him from knowing, instinctively, that when the darkest of all days came, that it would be her face in his mind in the end.

And he knew all of that, even if he never admitted it to himself before, from the very first moment that they met. That day when he should have told her to run . . . to run far away from this job and to run far away from him. He knew . . . because all he could associate with her was life. He knew . . . because all he could see of her was comfort. He knew . . . because all he could think of her was that she was just so . . . sweet . . . just the way that he suspected that her mouth would taste. And he knew . . . because those were not thoughts that he was supposed to have about an agent under his command, about the new rookie looking at him with such enthusiasm and light in her eyes. Hell, forget about telling her to run. He should have done that himself. 

Because it was that sweetness and that joy in her that changed him. That made sure that he would never be satisfied with what had come before. It changed the way that he looked at his job. The way that he looked at himself. And, God help him, the way that he looked at his marriage. 

Her emotions were wild, unpredictable and irrepressible, and they sparked something in him. Needs and desires and hopes that he thought that he had suppressed long ago. A desire to share his job with someone. . . even in the dark times. A need to be with someone. . . even in the silence. A willingness to let someone see him . . . all of him. . . even in his fear, in his anger, and in his pain. And a hope for the unattainable . . .a life with her. 

And that was what he could never admit, even to himself, before that night in the bookstore. That was the secret that kept him trapped in this web of lies and betrayals. The truth that his relationship with her had nothing to do with any act of love. That it wasn't about anything that could be controlled. 

The reality that the mere existence of their relationship was an acknowledgment that some people change you forever. Who you are. What you want. Where you are going. They come into your world like a whirlwind and nothing is ever the same again. 

Samantha had done that to him. She was his whirlwind. And now he was trapped. Torn between the man that society said that he was supposed to be - the man that he had been before he knew her - and the man that he had become in the days and the months and the lifetimes after they met. 

And now he had to decide. Which man did he want to be? Which of these men would live? And which would die at his hands? 

But he wasn't ready to do that. He couldn't make that decision now.

Not today of all days. 

And he had time. 

Didn't he? 

There was always time.

Wasn't there?  



End file.
